


The Sea Shall Not Have Him

by alenie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Implied Slash, Inkheart - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alenie/pseuds/alenie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek reads Stiles out of a book and into his cabin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sea Shall Not Have Him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elisera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisera/gifts).



> This was very much inspired by _Inkheart_ , by Cornelia Funke. Title is a play on the gorgeous song [ _The Sea Shall Not Have Them_](http://alenie.tumblr.com/post/65387061667).

Derek’s not sure why he ever thought it would be a good idea to take a writing sabbatical in New England. Fall was nice, all brilliantly colored leaves and crisp morning air, but winter is shitty and cold, and Derek misses California. He misses his cat. He misses the internet. There’s electricity here, thank god, but he has to go into town if he wants to check his email or browse Reddit. There’s not even a _television_ here. It’s ridiculous, even if it does do wonders for his concentration. He’s only been here a month and he’s already written four new chapters of his book.

But the solitude is going to drive him crazy.

He gets up and fiddles with the stove, heating up water to make himself a cup of tea, and starts scanning the bookshelf against the wall, stocked with treasures left behind by past inhabitants. There are far too many crappy romance novels, but eventually he settles on a book with an anchor on the front cover, and curls up in the armchair to read, his tea steeping beside him.

At home in California, he reads out loud to the cat when he needs a break from writing. He’s sans cat at the moment, but it doesn’t stop him from flipping open the cover and starting to read, his voice filling the small cabin.

By the third chapter, Derek’s hooked. What started out as routine journey at sea turns into a nightmare when a violent storm hits, the desperate captain barking orders at his crew. Derek’s especially caught by the description of the scrawny ship’s boy who’s sent down to the bilge to pump water out of the ship.

Water’s steadily trickling into the bilge, and Stiles’ hands , numb with cold, are already wrecked, bleeding and torn from the rough metal pump. The water level’s not going down, no matter how fast he works.

“Oh god, I’m gonna die,” he whimpers. “Please, I don’t want to die, not like this.”

The ship gives a great creak and plunges headfirst into the trough of a wave, throwing Stiles against the wall and knocking the air out of him. There’s already a foot of water covering the floor and Stiles crouches in it on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He knows what’s coming and he’s still not ready when the ship rears up and climbs out of the trough. He goes sliding across the room the other way and the water goes with him, slapping him in the face and forcing its way down his open mouth.

He’s crying and coughing and he’s going to die.

Derek’s clutching the book so hard his fingertips are going white. Jesus christ. His heart’s pounding and he feels like he’s at sea, right there with Stiles. It’s just a book, he reminds himself. It’s just a book and even if Stiles dies—even if the author is a cruel, heartless bastard—it’ll be okay.

It won’t be okay.

Derek takes a gulp of his tea, mostly cold by now, and keeps reading.

Stiles tries to reach the stairs, because if he’s going to die he wants to see the sky one last time, but the water’s so deep he’s practically swimming, and every time he gets close the ship heaves and the water pushes him away. He’s so tired. Maybe if he just rests for a moment…

“ _No_!” Derek shouts, horrified. “Stiles, don’t!” Tears are dripping down his cheeks, and his voice is thick and choked, but he keeps reading.

When Stiles closes his eyes, his eyelashes are stark black against his face. The storm’s still raging above and Stiles knows there’s no hope of rescue.

Derek closes his eyes and tears splash down onto the page. And then—

And then the air smells salty and damp and _sharp_ , and somebody moans and _it´s not Derek_.

And—

Stiles is lying on the floor of his cabin, coughing up seawater. He’s soaking wet and skinny as a rail and he looks up and sees Derek and pushes himself weakly backward. Snot’s running from his nose and his lip is split, a trickle of blood running down.

“Am I dead?” he chokes out, staring into Derek’s face. His eyes roll back in his head before Derek can answer and he slumps on the floor.

Derek leaps out of his chair and checks Stiles’ pulse with shaky fingers. It’s uneven, but he’s alive. Okay. Good.

Derek’s first instinct is to freak out, because _a character from a book just appeared on his floor_ , but he smashes that instinct down, because Stiles needs him. There’s a puddle gathering under him and his lips are tinged blue.

He’s light in Derek’s arms, a limp bundle that Derek carries into his bedroom and sets down on the rug. Derek gathers towels and scissors and a pair of his pajamas and crouches next to Stiles. The pants come off easily enough, tugged down Stiles’ skinny hips, but he has to cut Stiles’ shirt off. Naked, Stiles doesn’t look like much, all protruding hipbones and knobby knees. Derek knows from the book that he never gets enough to eat, that as a ship’s boy he’s given less food than the rest of the crew.

Derek pats him carefully dry with the towel, averting his gaze when he gets to the dark thatch of Stiles’ pubic hair, and wrangles him into Derek’s pajama pants. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to have any major injuries, although he’s covered in bruises and scrapes. Derek bandages the worst of them before scooping Stiles up one more time to lay him in Derek’s bed. He piles all the covers on top of him and climbs into bed next to him, sitting up against the headboard and keeping watch. Stiles seems to be asleep now rather than unconscious, thank god. It’s not like Derek has any medical training, and the nearest hospital is forty-five minutes away.

Stiles is asleep for an hour and ten minutes. Derek’s too wound up to do anything but sit and watch him sleep. He thinks about going and getting the book, turning the page to see if Stiles dies, but he can’t bear the thought of it. Stiles’ skin changes color as he warms up, from a sickly pale to something closer to the tan that Derek knows he earned from his duties as ship’s boy, keeping watch in the crow’s nest, climbing in the rigging, that sort of thing.

When he finally blinks awake, his gaze lands on Derek. He looks frightened.

“You’re not dead,” Derek hastens to reassure him. “It’s okay.”

“Am I in the hospital?” Stiles asks, voice scratchy. “I’ve never been in one, but I didn’t think they looked like this.”

“No, you’re in my house. You—you just appeared, Stiles, on my living room floor. I don’t know what happened.”

Stiles’ eyes are huge. “You know my name,” he whispers, and struggles to sit up.

“No, don’t get up,” Derek says hastily. “You’re injured; you need to rest. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

Stiles is already breathing heavily from his exertions and he eyes Derek and sinks back down into the blankets.

“I don’t understand,” he says. “There was a storm and I was belowdecks and there was so much _water_ …” He trails off. “I thought I was gonna die.”

 _Me too_ , Derek only just keeps from saying. Instead, he asks Stiles how he feels.

“Tired,” Stiles says. “Salty. Can I have some water?”

Shit, Derek should have thought of that sooner. “Yes, of course.”

He has to help Stiles sit up to drink, his hands on Stiles’ skinny shoulders. In the book Stiles is supposed to be seventeen, small for his age from a poor diet and a rough childhood. He looks even younger.

Stiles drinks a mug of water, clutching it in both hands. He looks absolutely exhausted by the time he’s through.

“You should try to sleep some more,” Derek says, taking the mug from him and setting it on a side table. “It’ll help you heal faster.”

“Will you be here when I wake up, Mister—”

“Derek,” Derek says. “Just call me Derek. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Stiles’ eyelids are drooping but he’s fighting it, trying to stay awake. “I’m scared,” he says, one hand curled around the uppermost blanket. “What if this is a dream and I wake up back on the ship?”

“You won’t go back,” Derek promises. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, easy and trusting. He’s barely awake and he sighs and shifts around, rubs his face against Derek’s pillow. “If this is a dream, it’s a really good one.”

*

It’s evening the next time Stiles wakes. His face is flushed and he pushes the blankets away fitfully and complains that he’s too hot. Derek doesn’t have a thermometer, but Stiles’ forehead is fever-hot under his palm, and Stiles is half-delirious, asking for his mother one moment and mumbling about the storm and the sea the next.

Derek leaves him on the bed and dashes into the bathroom, rummaging through the medicine cabinet for the bottle of Tylenol that he’s sure he’s seen in there before.  He finds it hiding in the back and returns to Stiles, who’s managed to dump all the covers on the floor in his absence. Stiles doesn’t protest when Derek hauls him upright so he’s leaning back against the headboard of Derek’s bed, but he’s weak enough that Derek has to hold him up or he lists to one side.

Stiles is suspicious of the pills and pushes Derek’s hand away. He’s thirsty, he says. Why won’t Derek give him water? So Derek offers him a bottle of water instead, and sighs gratefully when Stiles drinks. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, he plies Stiles with small sips of water. Then he offers the pills again.

“I need you to take these for me,” he tells Stiles. “It’ll help with your fever.”

“Don’ feel good,” Stiles says unhappily.

“I know. Swallow the pills, Stiles.”

Stiles makes a face at the taste of the pills on his tongue, but Derek’s right there with the water and he drinks and swallows them down.

Derek realizes abruptly that he has no idea when the last time Stiles ate anything was. He props Stiles up with pillows as best he can and heads to the kitchen to heat up some soup on the stove. Stiles is clearly in no state to handle a spoon himself, but he opens his mouth obediently like a baby bird when Derek brings a spoonful of soup to his mouth. Derek gets nearly half a bowl down him before Stiles gets too tired to eat any more. He helps Stiles lay back down and it’s not long before Stiles falls into an uneasy sleep, twitching and making little noises.

Derek wakes up with a stiff neck; he’d dozed off against the headboard trying to stay awake and keep an eye on Stiles. Stiles is still and quiet next to him: his fever’s broken. His pajama pants are soaked in sweat and he smells gross, but his forehead’s cool and he’s sleeping peacefully, thank god. Derek’s exhausted and he hasn’t even begun to come to terms with the fact that he _read Stiles out of a book_. Not to mention that he’s never taken care of anything bigger than his cat before and now he’s responsible for an actual human being. Because Derek’s the only person Stiles has now, in all the world.

*

In the morning, Derek is already up and washing his face in the bathroom when he hears Stiles stirring. He makes it to the door just in time to see Stiles determinedly set both feet on the floor and stand up. He wobbles violently in the process and Derek darts over and steadies him, hands firm on the bare skin of Stiles’ waist.

“Oh!” Stiles says, surprised, his hands landing on Derek’s arms. “Thanks.” Unexpectedly, he blushes.

When Derek lets go, Stiles sits down with a care that suggests aching and tired bones. Bruises have blossomed into color over his body overnight: his cheekbone is a mess of blues and purples, skin drawn tight, and he’s got a nasty bruise about the size of a grapefruit on his ribs. Derek’s willing to bet there are more hidden where he can’t see them.

“How do you feel?” he asks.

“Um,” Stiles says, twisting his fingers together. “I’m okay, I think, but I don’t—I don’t really remember what happened. How did I get here? W-what happened to the _Annie_?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admits. “I was reading, and you just turned up half-drowned on the floor.”

“But you knew my name.”

Derek hesitates. He’d been hoping to hold this conversation off for later, but he doesn’t see any way out.

“What?” Stiles says. “Derek? What is it?”

“I read you out of a book.”

Stiles blinks at him. A long moment passes, and then he says slowly, “I don’t understand.”

“You—Stiles, I was reading a book about your ship. The _Annie_. I don’t know how it happened, but you came out of the book.”

Shit, he’s not making this any better; Stiles looks freaked. “Stiles?”

“You’re lying,” Stiles says, his voice high-pitched. “That’s—that’s not possible; people don’t come out of books. What did you do to me?”

Stiles flinches away when Derek reaches out to him. “I didn’t do anything, I swear,” Derek says. “Just—wait here, I’ll be right back.”

The book is lying open on the floor in the living room; Derek brings it back to the bedroom and sits down next to Stiles, flipping through the pages until he finds one describing the storm.

“Look,” he says, holding the book out to Stiles and pointing to a paragraph halfway down the page.

Stiles takes the book and squints at the page. For a second, Derek wonders if he even knows how to read—but then he’s speaking, haltingly reading his own name out loud from the book. He reads the whole paragraph, stumbling over a few of the words.

“That’s me,” he says in a shocked tone, staring down at the book in his hands. “That’s exactly what happened. I was _there_.”

Derek nods.

 “Are you going to send me back?”

“I can’t,” Derek says. “I don’t know how. I’m sorry.”

 Stiles hunches up a shoulder. “I’m glad I’m not there anymore,” he says, looking away from Derek and fiddling with a corner of the blanket. Derek wants to press, to ask Stiles if there aren’t people he’ll miss, people he’ll never see again, but Stiles obviously isn’t in the mood to talk about it.

The book is still open in Stiles’ lap; Derek gently slides it out from under his hands and closes it. He’ll hide it, later, when Stiles isn’t paying attention. Sooner or later, Stiles will probably start wondering what would have happened to him if he’d stayed on that ship, but Derek thinks they should leave well enough alone. Stiles is here now, and there won’t be any point in pondering what might have been.

And right now, he thinks Stiles could probably use a break from tough questions. Derek looks him over, takes in his rumpled appearance and plethora of bruises, and asks Stiles if he’d like to take a bath.

Derek’s bathtub isn’t the biggest but Stiles seems awed by it when Derek shows him how to turn on the tap and fill the tub with steaming hot water. He points out the soap and is about to leave Stiles alone in the bathroom when Stiles’ hair catches his eye. It’s a hopeless mess, really, long and tangled and tied back with what looks like a piece of twine.

Happily, Stiles agrees to a haircut, and Derek sits him on the edge of the tub and stands behind him. He makes short work of Stiles’ ponytail, trims the rest of his hair as close as he can with a pair of scissors and then buzzes what’s left.

“All done,” he says, brushing the last strands off Stiles’ neck and leading him over to the mirror, and smothers a laugh when Stiles’ eyes go wide with shock when he sees his new hair. “What do you think?”

“Is that really me?” Stiles says, and this time Derek _does_ laugh, he can’t help it.

He leaves Stiles with a big fluffy towel and some clean clothes to change into and heads to the kitchen to see about breakfast. His cabin’s so small that he can hear Stiles singing to himself and splashing about while he pulls things out of the fridge and shoves some bread in the toaster. He’s scrambling eggs when Stiles peeks into the kitchen. Derek’s clothes hang on him—the length isn’t actually that bad, but everything’s too wide—and combined with the buzz cut, he looks even scrawnier.

“You hungry?” he asks. “Sit down, it’ll be ready in a minute.”

Stiles sits, but he can’t keep still, drumming his fingers on the table and sneaking glances at Derek. But when Derek sets a full plate down in front of him, the fidgeting stops and he gulps down his eggs on toast with a single-minded determination, like it’s the best thing he’s ever had. He hasn’t had eggs since he was small, he tells Derek when he stops to take a breath.

“We can have them again for dinner, if you want,” Derek says, and Stiles lights up.

*

Two days pass in quiet splendor. Derek’s not used to sharing his living space, but Stiles fits right in. He sleeps a lot the first day, but by the second he’s more energetic, and full of questions. He wants to help Derek make breakfast, and he asks constant questions about what all the different appliances in the kitchen do.

After, he settles into a corner of Derek’s couch with a blanket. Derek still needs to work on his book, surprise houseguest or no, and they’ve already established a routine wherein Derek writes for an hour or two while Stiles dozes on the couch or otherwise entertains himself. At the moment, however, Derek’s decided it’s high time to make a shopping list. Stiles has turned out to have a voracious appetite, and they’re running through Derek’s cupboard pretty quickly. He writes down all the usual things he likes to eat and makes a note to double the amounts.

Clothes for Stiles are also a priority. He hasn’t complained about having to share Derek’s wardrobe, but Derek wants him to have some things of his own. He carefully scrawls down everything he can think of that Stiles might need: jeans, t-shirts, socks, boxer briefs, flannel shirts, a coat, hat, and gloves.

“We can go into town tomorrow, if you’re feeling up to it,” he tells Stiles, who’s sketching something on the pad of paper Derek lent him. “You can stay here if you want, but it’ll be easier to pick out your clothes if you’re there to try them on.”

Stiles takes a long moment to respond, and when he looks up, his eyes are wet.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to go,” Stiles says. Derek starts to reassure him that he doesn’t have to go shopping, but Stiles plunges on. “You saved my life and I know I can’t stay with you forever when you’ve already done so much for me, bringing me here and giving me food and medicine and letting me sleep in your bedand now you’re going to buy me _clothes_ and I can’t even pay you back, but I want to stay, I want to _so much_ \--”

Stiles’ breath hitches and Derek does the only thing that seems possible, in that instant.

“You can stay,” he says urgently. “Stiles, _you can stay_.” Tears drip down Stiles’ cheeks and the shopping list is crushed between them, forgotten, as Stiles very quietly falls apart in Derek’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in three parts on [my tumblr](http://alenie.tumblr.com)!


End file.
